Microsoft To Bring Cortana To iOS, Android? | The Pervasive Product

It would seem that Microsoft not only had the benefits of watching Siri and Google Now grow to maturity before releasing it’s own assistant (Cortana), but that it’s taking a lesson from Google. If some assumptions strung together my strong language from Redmond are any indication, Microsoft will look to pop Cortana over to iOS as well as Android, a la Google Now on iOS. If this doesn’t seem like a big deal, I assure you it is. We’ve seen how effective Google Search / Now is in general and across the OS divide, but MS also has a much more mature product out of the gate.

Microsoft hasn’t yet announced this, and there’s only a report from the folks at Search Engine Land to go on, but given how the company’s Nokia X runs on a forked version of Android dressed up to look like a Windows Phone, it wouldn’t be surprising if the software maker looked once again to rivaling platforms in order to boost its own reach.

Windows Phone lead Marcus Ash recently noted that Microsoft sees Cortana as a “pervasive” product, and although he stopped short of outlining iOS and Android as potential beneficiaries (clever man!), it’s a move that would do Windows Phone’s own cause no harm at all. I like options, don’t you?